Help! Water damaged dry wall.

[SandrA9810]

So the other day, well night, I noticed the ceiling looked funny, but it was late and I didn't really look. The following morning a chunk of the popcorn stuff had fallen down.

So we notified the apartment people, and they sent a guy out to the apartment above us, since it was a water leak with their pipes.

There was enough water that some had dripped into our apartment, and there's a perfect outline of water damage around one 4x8ft sheet of drywall.
I would think the drywall would need to be replaced, but all they're doing is respakling it, and putting new popcorn up.
I know I don't own the place, but I'm worried about mold and mildew growing on the drywall.
Should it be replaced?? Should I try to take it further with the complex people??

 

[KirstenB]

So the other day, well night, I noticed the ceiling looked funny, but it was late and I didn't really look. The following morning a chunk of the popcorn stuff had fallen down.

So we notified the apartment people, and they sent a guy out to the apartment above us, since it was a water leak with their pipes.

There was enough water that some had dripped into our apartment, and there's a perfect outline of water damage around one 4x8ft sheet of drywall.
I would think the drywall would need to be replaced, but all they're doing is respakling it, and putting new popcorn up.
I know I don't own the place, but I'm worried about mold and mildew growing on the drywall.
Should it be replaced?? Should I try to take it further with the complex people??

I'd want it replaced. What I don't understand is sheetrock is really cheap. They would need to come back a few times, to tape it, then paint, then popcorn it, that's it.

 

[mantaz]

It should be replaced. If they didn't bring in blowers to dry and didn't spray it to prevent mold then I would demand it to be replaced. It can start growing mold in an instant. And if they didn't Kilz it, the stain will come back through in just a few months!

 

[traveljunkie2]

We had this happen in our house last year. Water had leaked from our bathroom shower for who knows how long before it actually soaked the drywall and dripped into our dining room. The plumber opened up the ceiling and found tons onf mold. We had to have a specialist come in, seal off the entire room, remove the rotten insulation, spray the area within the wall, as well as all of the surrounding walls and ceiling. It took several days and cost over $800 just for the mold guy. (Homeowners ins does not cover anything relating to mold) Then the leak was repaired, drywall repaired, ceiling retextured and painted. A huge pain, but my family has asthma and I was not going to deal with any health issues that might result.

I would insist that the ceiling be opened up and inspected for mold. It can take a LONG time for the water to saturate the drywall enough to cause a stain. In the mean time there is moisture in the wood and insulation and mold is most likely developing. Also, if they are just retexturing over the damp drywall, what about the possibility of the drywall falling down into your apartment? And bringing down all that mold then? As far as I understand, once drywall is wet, it just starts deteriorating. If it got wet enought for water to drip through it, I would be worried about a chunk falling down at some point.

 

[SandrA9810]

They claimed that the leak was found in time, and that it didn't have enough time to create any mold.
Any person with common sense of building materials knows that drywall is generally ruined if it ever gets wet.

It was an outside company that came in and did the work, and they're the ones that told us this. But they weren't the ones the did the plumbing repairs from above, so I don't think they ever saw what it looks like inbetween, just what's on our side.

The only part they used a kilz or equivalent was on the part of popcorn ceiling they didn't replace, just painted over. The soft spots, they scraped off the old compound, put new on, textured sprayed it, then painted it.

I'm ready to go at it with a dremel tool, and cut a small chuck out to see what's going on, on the other side. (It would give me an excuse to move the dining room light into the middle of the room where it should be, for now it hangs towards one corner of the table and too close to the china cabinet.) None of us have asthma or allergy issues, but one of our friend's that comes over is allergic to almost everything. It's bad enough that there's two cats and a dog (but he lets me borrow his Dyson...) I don't want more issues to prevent him from coming over. Nor do I ever want to deal with any lung issues.

I can picture Kari wanting to kill me if I put another hole in the wall... there's already 4 in the bathroom because I hung our medicine cabinet, some in the bedroom from our ceiling fan, and some in the spare room for hanging these mesh baskets for stuffed animals.

 

[amccu18007]

Dry wall CAN be dried out if the leak is caught in time. I would replace it if it was my home but if the leak was caught in time, you should not have any mold.

 

[dis-happy]

We've had a couple of different ceiling leaks in different houses where the leak was repaired, paint was applied, and everything was absolutely fine.

 

[Deb & Bill]

We had a ceiling leak from our AC unit and it was not replaced, just dried out and repainted. No problem.

We got flooded as well, that sheet rocks was soaked with dirty water/sewage and had to be cut out and replaced.